Retrotransposons of Arabidopsis thaliana expressed in wild-type plants

Sofya Gvaramiya1, Murad Omarov2, Ilya Kirov31Department of marker-assisted and genomic selection of plant All-Russia Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, sofia.gvaramia@gmail.com2Department of marker-assisted and genomic selection of plant All-Russia Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, muradok98@gmail.com3Department of marker-assisted and genomic selection of plant All-Russia Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, kirovez@gmail.com Mobile genetic elements are widely spread across the genomes of plants and animals. Of them, retrotransposons occupy substantial part of the genome. They had a huge impact on host genome evolution. However, their current activity in plant cell is thought to be very low on both RNA and cDNA (mobilome) levels because multiple silencing pathways. To get deeper insight into the mechanisms of mobilome formation we carried out identification of transcribed TEs of model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Using bioinformatics and ‘wet’ approaches we found evidence of expression of 6 TEs of A.thaliana. This opens a door for further functional studies of how some TEs can overcome the genome defense against retrotransposon activity.

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LTR-retrotransposon transcripts are ubiqutiously expressed, polyadenylated and underwent splicing in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.)

Pavel Merkulov, Murad Omarov, Ilya Kirov11All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology RAS, paulmerkulov97@gmail.com LTR-retrotransposons are mobile genetic elements widespread in plant genomes. Dispite the fact of significant part of genome engaged by retrotransposons (up to 80 percent), their activity is suppressed by multiple posttranscriptional and epigenetic mechanisms in normal conditions. Retrotransposon escape from silencing and subsequent expression are, in turn, purely described for plants.

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